Somewhere out there!

I’ve decided by next portable laptop will be a tablet. While in the UK over December/January I thought a bit about how I work and what methods I could find to improve my approach to work management. Particularly the constant pieces of paper floating around my deskspace which I like to then carry around in my backpack, and when I’m brainstorm how I like to draw diagrams and hand write notes quickly. Stuff which doesn’t work very well with a normal computer. Further reading and many blogs about tablets which all pointed at OneNote pretty much decided me on the matter. Then last week I had a chance to play around with a HP tc4200 then a Fujitsu T4010. Handwriting works, and its pretty amazing.

Most of last year I was dead keen on getting a Powerbook. Buying a Mini Mac clued me of that. Then being able to run NX desktops clued me having requiring Linux to running on my laptop. For the last three months I was using a IBM R52 just running WinX. With my NX desktop on the other side of the world I contained myself within WinXP. Annoying at times, but most of the time I was only using Firefox, Thunderbird and Openoffice. Not problems. The main thing that happened during this period was I discovered that WinXP is not so bad to run after. There is some really good WinXP software out there. Thus using WinXP Tablet edition is now not an automatic cross of the list transaction.
Question now of course is: which tablet do I get?

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For a while I’ve been planning to sit down and hack the Openvpn CA scripts for internal SSL use. One of the bits holding me up was finding some decent information on subjectAltName for VHost situations.

The CAcert Wiki has all the of information one would need, particularly a Interoperability Test table with comparisons of the various methods against different browsers. The also have some script code.

Technorati Tags: ssl, subjectAltName, cacert

I’ve been looking for a good system for integrating mobile workers and seperate into a central file storage system. One option I’ve been considering is subversion/webdrive, combined with something like ViceVersa for the smart power users so they can keep a local copy. Another is iFolder, which with its subscription folders since like a very interest method for streaming file collections to users.

Currently unless you want to buy Novell Open Enterprise Server, you have to use Simple Server. Unfortunately it seems that Simple Server is only good for a private network.

Apache: Enterprise Server runs behind apache using the apache module mod_mono. Simple Server has it’s own embedded http server (which by the way doesn’t currently support SSL). You are not going to get the same performance or load handling using Simple Server.

Not quite a flexible as WebDav+SSL for external clients. Still most mobile workstations should in most cases have VPN access.
The Ubuntu Wiki has a useful guide for building the package from source, which probably applies equally well to Debian.

Technorati Tags: ifolder, webdav

From ChipLog, here is some insight into the just released VMware Server. The main points of interest being i) its based on GSX and ii) it’s free.

Technorati Tags: vmware, virtualisation

Not quite a pro-blogger yet.

Technorati Tags: value, blog

Another interest post from Broobles, which I’ll have to follow up later, is 15 Essential Tools – “The Broobles Pack” his version of the Google Pack. Other than Great News, these two  SyncBackSE and Copernic Desktop Search look worth investing.

Technorati Tags: windows, software, collection

After trying several feed readers been using Sharp RSS Reader for quite a while. Today, after added the Simple Tags plugin I checked the plugin author’s blog. I note this post about Moving from RSS Bandit to GreatNews.

After just a few minutes with Great News from Curio Studio, I can give it my “this is the Shiznit!” label. With features like: Full page reading, custom labels, and a sane ompl import tool it greats full marks.

Of all the readers I’ve tried this is the only one that gets out my way and presents the news from feeds the way it feels it should be read. It does some smart stuff, like ignoring archiving (to disk) options, instead added buttons so the user can quickly archive to the hive mind (to web). The only extra I can see myself want now is some sort of bayesian, this is interesting button.
I’m uninstall Sharp Reader now.

Technorati Tags: rss, reader, GreatNews, shiznit

Just added the Simple Tags plugin for WordPress. Perfect simply little plugin that just works

Technorati Tags: tags, wordpress

Back in the polite surfeit calm land of the Brit, I can contemplate the smoky dens of eating and a constant need to argue; just a little bit.

A vegetarian travelling in the modern era usually discovers the most difficult thing is finding a place to eat where the meal beast is not as common as wheat and people don’t have trouble understanding the exact mean of “I eat no meat” (wo bu chi rou). Yes, that means no fish. While in snow-bound Central Europe this time, instead the most difficult thing was the combination of central heating and smoking. Pretty soon just the smell of heat was sufficient to create the feeling of being surrounded by several tables of smokers in a small oily room.

Maybe the essential oil of smoke had embedded itself into my nose hairs.

The best value though, was finding comfort in the joys of my new snow jacket, while discovering the four borders on the midnight bus between Zagreb and Vienna. I guess with the European borders about to move, low-traffic night time is a great time to practice border control computer skills.

Doesn’t help much with sleep though.

Final word on ADSL in Croatia, seems that being owned by Germans and having a monopoly means that only Siemens modems work for DSL in Zagreb. Shame they don’t tell you that at the computer store when you are buying a Netgear Wireless ADSL Router. Instead after several days of trying, phoning, asking and tinkering, you then find a second hand Siemens SE515 that just works.

Maybe New Zealand Telecom isn’t so bad after all.

Got to go for the cakes though!

Technorati Tags: travel, humor, life, zagreb, central-europe

For your friends and family who don’t understand the web design process, show them this site. Should help explain things you you point out that, being a developer you talk in 1 and 0s.